1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to the art of cabinets and, more particularly, to a vertically adjustable shelf and support rail arrangement for use in a cabinet.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
In order to accommodate varying sized items to be stored within a cabinet, it is desirable to provide a versatile shelving assembly that will enable shelves to be supported at heights that can be varied as desired. The advantages of providing a vertically adjustable shelving arrangement is particularly prevalent in refrigerator cabinets wherein the storage space between various vertically arranged shelves often needs to be adjusted to accommodate different food items. Typically, vertically adjustable shelving arrangements for cabinets only enable each shelf thereof to be fixedly mounted at a selected height and to only be repositioned vertically by completely disengaging the shelf from within the cabinet and again mounting the shelf in a new, fixed position. Repositioning a shelf in this manner generally requires all of the items stored upon the shelf to be removed prior to the vertical adjustment being performed. Of course, this can represent a rather time consuming and tedious project that must be performed even if it is desired to only adjust the shelf vertically a small distance. To alleviate this problem, it has heretofore been proposed to mount a shelf within a cabinet, such as a refrigerator cabinet, through a mechanism which will allow the shelf to be mechanically repositioned without having to first take the shelf out of the cabinet or to completely remove items stored thereon. Such types of known shelving arrangements have incorporated both manual and electrically powered adjustment mechanisms.
Unfortunately, vertically adjustable shelving arrangements for cabinets of this type proposed in the prior art have associated therewith various drawbacks. For instance, such known shelving arrangements typically require portions of the cabinet storage space to be individually designed for use with either fixed shelves or shelves which can be adjusted vertically without being completely removed from the cabinet. Therefore, predetermined areas are designated for mounting of the readily, vertically adjustable shelves, instead of providing an arrangement which is more versatile and which allows the readily adjustable shelf to be mounted in any one of a desired number of positions relative to other shelves within the cabinet.
Typically, these known readily adjustable shelves have associated therewith vertically extending guide screws, racks or channels which mandate that the shelves be initially mounted within the cabinet at a specified height and then repositioned as desired. For example, known shelving arrangements of this type often require the shelf to be initially mounted at an uppermost portion of the cabinet and then shifted downward to a desired height. With this construction, removal of the shelf also requires locating the shelf in this uppermost position. Of course, in initially mounting or removing the readily adjustable shelf, any intermediate shelves would have to be correspondingly removed if obstructing the path of the readily adjustable shelf. Therefore, these known shelving arrangements suffer from the disadvantage of not being able to initially attach the shelf in a wide range of positions or to readily remove the shelf without affecting the remainder of the overall shelving arrangement.
Based on the above, there exists a need in the art for a readily, vertically adjustable shelving assembly that can be easily mounted or removed at substantially any desired location within a cabinet, while still enabling the shelving assembly to be vertically repositioned through a reliable mechanical drive arrangement. In addition, there exists a need for a shelving assembly of this type which includes shelf supports that are more universal in nature so that they can support various types of shelves, thereby providing a more versatile overall shelving arrangement.